Monday Morning Sentimonies: On Second Though

Riders 17 – Calgary 41

Okay I take back what I said about wishing I could see Sunday’s game. It was probably for the best that the majority of Rider fans were not subjected to watching an ugly preseason performance. I’m talking like offspring of Quasimodo and Rosie O’Donnell ugly (though I’m not sure which one would be the man in that relationship).

I know it’s only preseason and we aren’t using our full playbook but I was still hoping for a better showing by the green and white in their final tune up before the 2010 season. Instead we were treated to some mediocre at best offense, some incredibly soft defense, a ridiculous amount of penalties and so much general ineptitude I thought for a while that I might have mistakenly tuned in to an Argo game.

In a game like that its tough to find positives but I will do my best.

- Durant had a good half and probably would have had a better second half if he’d got the chance.

- Sakoda seems to have remembered how to punt.

- Daniel Francis is playing outstanding. Cary Koch sounded like he had a good game too.

- I was able to distract myself from the game with images of bears on unicycles and ostriches

I was also able to take a small amount of pleasure in the absolute implosion of Ryan “My eyes are not from this planet” Dinwiddie. Don’t get me wrong I don’t want the Riders’ backup QB to suck but Dinwiddie’s opening pick followed by a mere 3 completions does help vindicate my hatred of him. Honestly after watching him in practice and in the first preseason game i was starting to get worried that I might have to eat some crow. Turns out, that’s not likely to happen for a while. I guess Dinwiddie will just have to settle for holding a clipboard and stealing souls by the light of the moon. One question though... does Dinwiddie know that there are other receivers on our team other than Clermont?... like 95% of his passes go #82’s way.

I won’t get too much into the negatives (though there were many). Its preseason, we weren’t using our full playbooks, we lost both preseason games last year and that turned out not bad. Obviously the team needs to work on tightening up on defense, playing disciplined football and getting better coverage and blocking on special teams. Yesterday’s performance is somewhat concerning but I’m not too worried about it. I’m sure our coaches and players will be ready to go come Canada Day.

The coaches have until Thursday to do the easiest part of any coach’s job... the cuts. The Riders have to be down to their 46 man roster, practice roster and injury list by then. I’m sure as always, most of the cuts will be forgone conclusions (cough Willie Byrd cough) and a few of them will be surprising (cough Willie Evans cough). I guess we will see what tomorrow brings.